Railguns at the ready, Quake Live hits Steam 'soon'

Free-to-play shooter Quake Live is coming to Steam "soon," some four years after it first hit browsers. Bethesda Softworks Vice-President Pete Hines announced the news at Quakecon yesterday, though he didn't put a date on the Steam release. Meanwhile on the game's website, id Software revealed the Steam version supports subscriptions to the Quake Live premium service, which among other perks offers access to all the arenas and gametypes. Players can also choose to port their Quake Live account over to the Steam account.

After releasing a standalone client earlier this year, id Software has more changes in store for its on-railguns shooter. The developer also revealed plans for an update that it claims will bring about "some big gameplay changes" for the first time in the game's history. The update, among other tweaks, is due to drop ahead of the Steam release.

"We want to ensure that FPS fans who check out the game on Steam have more fun in their first match than the current gameplay systems allow," wrote web programmer Mike Rubits. "We're not talking too much about specific changes yet, especially since the changes need to be taken as one whole package in order to be effective, but we will be iterating internally over the next few weeks to see what works."